to vikingsMessageBoard.com. You've found the online home for over a thousand Minnesota Vikings fans from all over the world.

Before you jump into the various conversations on the board please take a minute and read our rules. As you post remember that there is a variety of people reading you comments here, so post appropriately.

A Few Tips On Registering Here

Choose a normal user name. If you use something like "smdkr478361" then you more than likely will have your registration deleted.

No full names of actual people, other than yourself. If you register with the name of Brett Favre, Kobe Bryant, or any other known person, your registration will be deleted.

Try to use a normal email address. While I don't mind Yahoo or Hotmail accounts, if you use some off the wall address that looks fishy, your registration will be deleted.

Account Activations

This site uses Administrative Account Activation. You can register for an account so you can post here and then I am notified by email that there is a new account to be activated, and can then activate it if so desired. I am the only one that activates new accounts here.

I am on the road for work from time to time and I sometimes work strange hours during the week. If your account is not activated immediately, don't worry. I will review the account as soon as possible. If it gets close to a week, feel free to send me an email.

I also typically will not activate accounts immediately before, during, or after games. This just holds down the traffic of people coming here on game weekends for the sole fact of trolling. These people won't come back if their accounts are not activated in a couple of days. On the other hand, if you are a Vikes fan that wants to join this community, please be patient and your account will be activated as soon as possible.

What? I Haven't Recieved My Account Activation Notice! If you don't get an account activation email, check back and try to log in, or contact me via email. Email from messageboards can get hung up in Spam filters, especially from Yahoo and Hotmail accounts. Your account may have been activated but you didn't get the welcome email.

Account Deletions

If you have posted messages here, but have not logged into the board for one calendar year, your account will be deleted.

New accounts will be reviewed every 30 days. If you have not posted or logged into the board for 30 days from the time you joined, your account will be deleted.

You don't have to post to keep your membership here. We have many people that lurk on this board, but they log in and are active. They take an interest in our community. If you are not even going to log into this board, then there is no sense in registering. We want people that are interested in being here.

Commercial Messages, Spam, and False Articles

Posting any ad on this board without the permission of glg is prohibited, period. Registering for the purpose of posting ads or to recruit members to other sites will result in your account being deleted. Registering for the purpose of selling tickets is prohibited. Members are allowed to post their own tickets for sale, but if your first post is trying to sell tickets (ie, that's the only reason you signed up), you will be deleted.

While signature links are acceptable, Spam isn’t allowed. Posting Spam here will result in immediate deletion of your account.

It is up to the posting member to verify the material they post. If an article is represented as factual and turns out to be altered by you for your own purposes, your account will be deleted.

Posting Off Site Articles

If you post an article or story from another news site, your post should include a link to the original website the article came from. Posting of entire articles will not be permitted. Please only post a small portion of the article along with a link to the full and original article. This is due to copyright infringement requirements. Full articles will be edited or deleted. Please avoid articles or links to articles from paid subscription sites, as most users will not be able to access them.

Duplicate Threads

Read first, it's very possible that someone has already posted on the same topic. Please join the existing thread instead of starting another on the same subject. We want your thoughts. Everyone who joins this board is encouraged to participate in the forums. Just one hint: What you just learned might not be new here. We have over two thousand members and they're all over Vikings news. At least check the first page to make sure someone else hasn't beaten you to the punch.

All multiple threads on the same subject will be merged or deleted as appropriate. Please use the search feature of this forum to check to see if a particular subject matter has been posted. We will try to keep the earliest thread on the subject and merge or delete all subsequent threads. Don't get offended if your thread gets merged.

As an example, if there is a general discussion on a player then add your thoughts to the existing thread. But if it involves a signing or a release of a player from an existing thread, then it is fine to post a new thread due to the nature of the news, provided someone else doesn't beat you to it.

During games, there is usually a game thread going on. Please keep in-game discussion to that thread and refrain from starting new threads about specific plays, etc. If you're doing an in-depth analysis of a couple of plays later, that's worth a new thread, but a simple "that was a great/awful play" should be put in the game thread.

Misplaced Threads

Any thread placed in the wrong forum will either be moved to the appropriate forum or deleted altogether.

Smack talk belongs in the Smack Shack. Posting smack in other forums will not be tolerated.

Politics will not be tolerated. Political discussion relating to Stadium or Viking issues is the only exception to this rule. Please keep such discussions as narrow as possible (ie, no "We'll never get a stadium with these despicable Whigs in power"). All other political discussion is strictly off limits. We have had problems with this in the past and have found this to be the best policy. If you find another poster has broken this rule and it disagrees with your own position, it doesn't not make it okay for you to break the rules as well. Instead, please report the post by clicking on the red exclamation point button.

Private Messages

Our board includes Private Messaging (PMs) for members to enjoy personal, private conversations online. Using PMs to spam or bother members of this board will not be tolerated and can result in the deletion of your account.

If any member receives a PM they feel is offensive, spamming or simply unwanted, please report it to the board staff at once.

Personal Attacks and Offensive Language/Material

Posts containing obscene, profane, threatening, harassing, offensive, vulgar, racial, abusive, hateful or bashing language or images will not be tolerated and will be removed. This board uses a word filter list. Skirting the word filter list so that inappropriate language will show up is frowned upon and can result in your post being edited or deleted. Circumnavigating the word filter is a particularly bad idea when doing so in dialogue with another person. Your post has a better chance of being edited or deleted when this occurs and depending on the tone of your post may result in a warning

Trolling is not permitted. This is a Vikings board. We are under no obligation to give equal time to other team's fans. If you're a fan of another team, be respectful, or you'll be gone.

"Good fan" / "Bad fan" posts are not permitted. Just because you disagree with someone's views doesn't mean that they're not as much of a fan as you are. Disagree and respond to the post, do not attack the poster.

Posts that contain explicit, obscene or vulgar images, or links to such images, will be removed without notice. Humorous images are allowed but may be removed depending on content at any moderator's discretion.

Violation can result in the deletion of your account.

If you see such a post, please do not respond in kind. Instead, use the report post function, the red exclamation point button, which will notify board staff.

Avatars & Graphics

If you want to use your own avatars, they must be less than 150 pixels wide, 200 pixels high and 150kb max file size. Large avatars cause the page to scroll and take up a lot of bandwidth. If you post an animated avatar that we feel has an excessive file size, we will either ask you to change it, or delete it.

Signature graphics should be no more than 450 x 150 pixels and 150kb max file size. Exceeding these limits will result in either being asked to change your graphic or the deletion of said graphic.

3 Warnings Result In a User Ban

We understand that not all rule infractions require the same level of response and so instead of simply banning a user for breaking the rules we may choose to use the message board's "warning" functionality instead.After three warnings a user will be banned without discussion.